Trade Meeting

[discuspro]

I live in Austin and was wondering if there is a normal meeting time that MAAST Austinites get together to trade frags? I'm more or less new to the forum but not to the hobby or Austin.

[truck0000]

Welcome to maast. :D Good to see another Austin reefer on the board. My reef is just starting to take off. So no frags from me yet. :(

[discuspro]

Need any? Goods and equipment are good trading items as well, and of course dollar bills. I've got maybe 20 or more types of SPS now ranging from Pocillopora to Tyree Purple Monster.

[GaryP]

Welcome to MAAST.

We are currently working on setting up some meetings in Austin for this year. its actually something out Meeting Committe is working hard on.

In the meantime, feel free to cruise the for sale and for trade forums here for frags. There are always someone selling or trading frags there. Save me a Tyree! I'd be willing to trade you a few things for a Tyree.

[discuspro]

Sweet. I got the Tyree recently and is growing out a bit. I've got some unique ones as well, including an Acropora cuneata that I've never seen anywhere for sale or trade. You can look on frags.org under member name "discuspro" for three of my corals, where I've got some good pictures setup and described. Thanks for the welcome. I go to St. Edward's U. and I'm the only one doing marine coral research on the campus.

[GaryP]

I'll be looking forward to meeting you and talking to you more about your research.

[NaCl_H2O]

Welcome to MAAST! Some posts on your research would be interesting for our members!

[discuspro]

First, I am an undergraduate Biochemist. My research is geared towards determining the rate of calcification for a 90g colony of Pocillopora damicornis at known conditions. I then test the effects on the rate of calcification by orthophosphate, whether it truly does decrease calcification or disrupt some other process. I'm still working on this. Once that is found I hope to determine where phosphate may fit into the calcification pathway of calcifying corals.

I've got a website in the making but it's really rough, I'm still working on my html skills. You may take a look but by no means does it represent the organization of my research yet. The data log is really old and shows the instability of the system a year or so ago when it was first setup.

here's the link:

http://myweb.stedwards.edu/dholden/research.html

[GaryP]

Wow! Talk about a hot topic. Are you looking at both meta and ortho phosphates? Management, and over management, of phosphates is one of the most debated subjects in the hobby right now. You may want to check out this thread.

http://www.maast.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=15849

[NaCl_H2O]

Appropriate phosphate levels for coral growth has been the subject of many threads here. We are mostly "Trial" chemists here ;) so some empirical data would be great ... keep us up-to-date, great stuff!

[GaryP]

Besides the hobby, I can think of several environmental applications to your research, especially since many reefs in the Pacific have been heavily impacted by phosphate run-off from mines as well as untreated sewage.

[discuspro]

Detecting phosphate levels, any kind, is very cool for me because I have access to very expensive spectrometers that can very accurately measure small and large quanities of any phosphate bound molecules. Cleaning them out of my system isn't an issue. I actually have a seperate test container/tube that I place the test coral into and subject it to known quantities of orthophosphate and then measure calcification rates among other things that I can.

GaryP, that is about exactly why I am turning the research toward that direction so that when I present my research it can have global applications!

[GaryP]

Are you measuring calcification based on depletion of soluble calcium ions or do you have some biochemical method, or just by weight gain? Do you plan on looking at meta phosphate as well?

OK, everybody, we can just start taking our water samples to discuspro from now on. J/K.

[SBreef]

Gary now has a new "Friend" :o Welcome to MAAST Discuspro

[Sherri]

Gary now has a new "Friend" :o Welcome to MAAST Discuspro

:P :P :P :P

Welcome Discuspro..... ;)

[blueboy]

finally, someone gary can talk over our heads to. lol jk. welcome to maast

[fishypets]

Dustin,

I would like to work out a trade with you. I have over 30 limited edition sps frags including Tyree and Paletta. Send me a e-mail and we can discuss the details. fishypets@austin.rr.com

Clint

[GaryP]

finally, someone gary can talk over our heads to. lol jk. welcome to maast
What can I say? Nothing against any of you. I'm sorry if anyone felt like I was going over their heads.

I worked in the field of phosphate chemistry in water treatment for a couple of years. We actually added phosphates to water in industrial systems to control calcium. Sort of the opposite of what we do in aquariums. They use them to prevent calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate scaling. In our case we used meta (organic) phosphates such as phosphonates and phosphate esters.

I've been doing some reading on how phosphates are thought to be cycled in natural reef systems lately. Delbeck & Sprung have a pretty good section on that in one of their books. If any of you non-technoids ever have a hard time getting to sleep at night, I highly recommend it.

We'll definitely have to get DiscusPro to come out and give us a talk at a meeting after he has some conclusions to share with us. I promise to not ask any questions (fingers crossed behind my back).

[TheCampbells]

I would also like to trade. I live in Burnet, but I go to Austin about once a week.

[hammondegge]

Hey Dustin, Welcome. Glad to have another here in central austin. I'm all for a swap meet. Looking forward to meeting you
robert

[discuspro]

Thanks for the welcome!

[blueboy]

finally, someone gary can talk over our heads to. lol jk. welcome to maast
What can I say? Nothing against any of you. I'm sorry if anyone felt like I was going over their heads.

I worked in the field of phosphate chemistry in water treatment for a couple of years. We actually added phosphates to water in industrial systems to control calcium. Sort of the opposite of what we do in aquariums. They use them to prevent calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate scaling. In our case we used meta (organic) phosphates such as phosphonates and phosphate esters.

I've been doing some reading on how phosphates are thought to be cycled in natural reef systems lately. Delbeck & Sprung have a pretty good section on that in one of their books. If any of you non-technoids ever have a hard time getting to sleep at night, I highly recommend it.

We'll definitely have to get DiscusPro to come out and give us a talk at a meeting after he has some conclusions to share with us. I promise to not ask any questions (fingers crossed behind my back).

[blueboy]

oh, i've certainly never felt it was anything against anyone here. in fact i highly value your experience, knowledge, and willingness to share it. it's just that it's become clear to me in reading here over the past few years that you have a more thoruogh understanding of certain aspects of the hobby than many of us. that is to say where would MAAST be without GaryP?

[discuspro]

GaryP, to answer your past question, I am trying to determine calcification rate by measuring Calcium ions through an EDTA titration method and also through alkalinity titration with 0.01M standard HCl. For phosphate I am measuring effects due to orthophosphate alone. At the moment I'm still ironing out difficulties using my EDTA current titration method. I have tried using an Atomic Absorption spectrometer to measure calcium alone but the machine need maintenance, because it does not give a stable absorbance. Most EDTA titration methods rely slightly on Magnesium to develop color but I'm trying to get Calcium alone and since they are somewhat similar they are slightly difficult to separate and have steady results. The reason why it is being somewhat of a pain is because I'm trying to measure significantly small changes in Calcium levels that the normal, even Salifert, test kits can't get precisely.

About the talking, I definitely don't have enough results analyzed to talk about yet and I'm really not all that super knowledgeable yet to give a guest speaking. I could talk about the research, the goals, and some of my results sometime.

I am going to present my research this spring at the Texas Academy of Science meeting, the American Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta, and for the natural science department of St. Edward's U. So by the time I'm done with those I'll probably have some good stuff to talk about.

[fishypets]

GaryP, to answer your past question, I am trying to determine calcification rate by measuring Calcium ions through an EDTA titration method and also through alkalinity titration with 0.01M standard HCl. For phosphate I am measuring effects due to orthophosphate alone. At the moment I'm still ironing out difficulties using my EDTA current titration method. I have tried using an Atomic Absorption spectrometer to measure calcium alone but the machine need maintenance, because it does not give a stable absorbance. Most EDTA titration methods rely slightly on Magnesium to develop color but I'm trying to get Calcium alone and since they are somewhat similar they are slightly difficult to separate and have steady results. The reason why it is being somewhat of a pain is because I'm trying to measure significantly small changes in Calcium levels that the normal, even Salifert, test kits can't get precisely.

About the talking, I definitely don't have enough results analyzed to talk about yet and I'm really not all that super knowledgeable yet to give a guest speaking. I could talk about the research, the goals, and some of my results sometime.

I am going to present my research this spring at the Texas Academy of Science meeting, the American Chemical Society meeting in Atlanta, and for the natural science department of St. Edward's U. So by the time I'm done with those I'll probably have some good stuff to talk about.


What?

[GaryP]

I don't suppose St. E has a spare ICP laying around somewhere? Have you checked to make sure the AA source bulb is OK. Just a stab in the dark. I've done a little AA, but not much. Mainly I had analytical guys to do that sort of thing for me. Are there any funds available to send your sample out for analysis? I think Hach has a colorimetric test that uses a Spec 20 or a similar spectrophotometer. Check here to see if this is any help.

http://www.hach.com/hc/browse.parameter.list/PAR045/NewLinkLabel=Hardness/PREVIOUS_BREADCRUMB_ID=HC_SEARCH_BROWSE_PARAMETER/SESSIONID|Bk15TnpjMk5EZzJKbWQxWlhOMFJrMUdRa2N4TVE9 PUJ6TTRPVA==|

I wouldn't expect you to be able to speak about your results anytime real soon, but please let me know when you do have some results that are ready to report.

[discuspro]

I've checked the bulb and it is okay, and I've read the manual over and over. It's pretty old! An ICP we don't have but they are building a new science facility available in the fall and it may have an ICP.

I do use a UV-Vis Cary 500 for Phosphate readings

Fishypets, I was responding to GaryP's question on the first page that didn't get answered.

[GaryP]

Does your test measure calcium only, or total hardness?

[discuspro]

I am trying to test both seperately. Right now I am working on a substantial paper for Physics II, you would never think you'd have to write a paper for Phys. II, but pretty much every science class at St. Ed's has atleast one or more presentations and papers due. St. Ed's is an awesome school, I used to go to Texas A&M Corpus for Marine Biology, but I moved back to Austin. It doesn't seem to compare to the challange I have at St. Ed's! So, I'll be looking back and forth at the forum as I write the paper tonight.

[GaryP]

Git er done.

We'll be here when you do.